Whisper sweet nothings in my ear...

I love going to church with my husband. I love sharing worship with him. We sit close and hold hands or he puts his arm around me. I'm so thankful to have a husband who loves the Lord.

At our church, they collect the offering after the sermon at the very end of the service. Today, during the offering, I whispered to Brandon, "I love you". And he leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I want to get a Frosty at Wendy's." He didn't hear my "I love you." :) I laughed! So, we went to Wendy's after church, which is right across the street from our church.




Last night, we went out to dinner with Brandon's parents. There was an Italian restaurant that donated 10% of the evening's profits to MarriageTeam. It was a great night!




Brandon's parents have a wonderful ministry called MarriageTeam that helps couples communicate better and have successful marriages. Some couples who have filed for divorce go through marriage coaching and afterward tear up their divorce papers. It's a great ministry. Check it out...www.MarriageTeam.org.

8 weeks ago today!

Brandon and I got married 8 weeks ago today! We can't believe it's been 8 weeks already. I can't believe how fast May has gone. It seems like 5 minutes ago that I was sad the month of April was over. Now it's almost June!

I'm so glad it's Saturday! It's sunny & beautiful today. It's 52 degrees right now. Hope you have a great weekend!

Welp... I've arrived....

I've officially achieved star status. :) I've been subbing at one of the middle schools this week. I am working as the librarian Tues-Fri. The kids are starting to recognize me and give me compliments on my coolness (I'm grinning as I write this!). My favorite compliment came today from a 6th grade boy. I taught his class Tuesday (Theater Arts class) in the library. Anyway, when he rounded the corner & saw me today, he said, "YES! You just made my day! I love you, Mrs. Ray... You're cooler than Justin Bieber!" :)

I know almost nothing about Justin Bieber except that he gets on my nerves when I see him or read about him. But I DO know that the kids worship him. So, I'm thinkin' a "cooler than Justin Bieber" compliment is toppin' the charts. :) Ha,ha! I've arrived!

Don't hate me because it's 54...

:) I just noticed that it's 96 in Texas today. It's 54 degrees right now and the high is supposed to be 56. And I'm wearing a sweater today. Don't be hatin'... ;-p

Brandon got the job!

:) My honey got the job offer today. God has blessed us with a better salary, even. We are relieved to have a job this soon. We were a little disappointed yesterday when Brandon didn't get the offer. We've been joking ever since we found out Brandon's current job was ending that we might have to live in a cardboard box under a bridge in Portland. Yesterday, I saw a train and suggested we hop railroad cars and see the country instead of living under the bridge. We got a laugh out of that, but Brandon said it's illegal (who knew? ;). I told him today, "Well, I guess I won't be able to be Boxcar Willie now." Brandon said, "You should blog that!" :) Ha,ha.

We are thanking God for Brandon's new job! Hallelujah! :) Thanks for praying for us!

Still waiting...

Brandon had his 2nd interview in Longview today. It went well. It seems like they are seriously considering him for the job. I think the biggest hold-up is that they want us to move to Longview. That would be fine except we want to stay in our house until Sept. 2012. So... for now, we wait.

Please keep us in your prayers! :) Thank you!

Seattle Pictures

Here are the pictures I took in Seattle. We went on the weekend of May 7th. It was a great trip!

Click on the picture to open the Picasa web album. If you've never done so, I recommend clicking on "Slideshow" in the upper left hand corner. Enjoy! :)

May 22, 2011

Friday night- Date night! :)

I'm always telling you that our town sits on the Columbia River. The Columbia River runs between Washington and Oregon and joins the Pacific Ocean in Astoria. You can look across the river and see Oregon. We are literally that close.

Anyways, I didn't realize we have "waterfront activities" here. Little did I know that there is a marina, a park and a very cute waterfront cafe. Brandon took me there last night for our Friday night date. The food was delicious and it was such a fun place! :) I love being on the water!


We had to walk down the boat ramp and across a floating sidewalk to get to the cafe. It was neat!



We could see Mt. Hood as we were walking down the boat ramp. So beautiful! Click on the picture to enlarge it. Once enlarged, click again and it will zoom in.

Husband Phenomenon...

There is a husband phenomenon that I learned about from Candice after she first got married. I remember when she said she didn't realize Todd was that funny until after they were married. To carry it even further, she collected data on his funniness (I should say she's a statistician with the USDA so collecting data is what she does for a living). She tracked both of them and their funny episodes and Todd ended up being funnier than she was (and anyone who knows Candice knows she is HILARIOUS).

So... lately, my mild-mannered, sweet, cuddly husband has turned into a HILARIOUS, sassy, funnyman. Several times lately I've caught myself saying, "Honey, that's the funniest thing you've ever said!" :) He is cracking me up on a daily basis. I wish I had been keeping data on his funniness. I can't remember all the funny stuff lately, but we both have been laughing our heads off, wheezing, coughing and bending over with laughter.

Ok, here is info you need: I got a special low-fat/calorie cookbook for Christmas that I asked my parents to order for me. I've been experimenting with a variety of recipes. I've discovered some delicious ones and some not-so-tasty ones. Yesterday I made some homemade cupcakes that are average with homemade dark fudge icing that is SO DELICIOUS!!! The cupcakes tasted good but were really dry. Not hard... just dry. Our oven cooks like a furnace. Anyways, dry cupcakes with OUT OF THIS WORLD chocolate icing.

Now, for the story...This morning we went out for breakfast. As we were leaving the restaurant, Brandon (the chocoholic) said, "I'm wanting some chocolate." I said, "You can eat another one of those cupcakes I made yesterday." And my funny husband said, "You mean the BRICKS with chocolate icing?" I pretended to be offended while I was laughing. I said, "Why don't you run in the store and get some chocolate?" He looked at me and said, "Nah... I can just lick the brick." :)

Here he is, in all his splendor, about 20 minutes ago, licking the brick...

A second interview!

Brandon has a second interview on Monday at 2 pm! :) That's really great news for us! Keep praying for us, please. We appreciate it!

I'm on my lunch break. I'm subbing at the high school today. I had 3 great morning classes. I love high school kids. :) They're so fun. Speaking of kids & school, almost every day I run across teachers and kids from Texas and other parts of the South. There's a secretary at one of the schools here who is from North Carolina. I like her alot! There's a principal from Memphis, an athletic's assistant from Alabama, and several teachers I've met who have parents in San Antonio and the panhandle of Texas.

In my 1st period class today, I met a boy who just moved up here from El Paso in January. :) That was cool! And the 3rd period class had students from Georgia and Florida. I've met some elementary kids from Houston & Spring/The Woodlands.

Check this out, last Friday I subbed at one of the middle schools. There were 2 other ladies subbing as well. The lady next door to me said her husband grew up in Huntsville, TX. Can you believe that? That's where I was living with my parents before marrying Brandon. AND her husband graduated from the University of Texas at Austin! :) They lived in Austin for a number of years after they were married. The other sub across the hall used to live in Corpus Christi.

The special ed. aide/lady I subbed with yesterday lived in Dallas & Houston (flying for Delta Airlines) and used to visit Austin on the weekends. It's such a small world! :)

Job hunting...

My honey is interviewing for jobs right now. Last week, he had a very promising, 4-hour interview in Longview, Washington. It looks like he has a very good chance of being appointed. Please be praying for God's will for us. He needs a new job by August. I will also be looking for a full-time teaching job before August. Thank you for your prayers. :)

Brandon has a really nice suit that he has only worn once. It's charcoal gray with alternating, thin, white and baby-blue pin stripes. So, we went shopping on the night before the interview and I picked out his white dress shirt, blue tie and new black dress shoes to match. I think my man looks handsome! :)



Here are some pics from last Tuesday (the Longview interview day). In one of the pics, Brandon was looking over his portfolio in the car with me. Then, we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.





He's thinking, "God, why did you give me this woman who is always taking my picture???" And I'm thinking, "I love this sweet face!" :)




He's thinking, "Let me glance upward and look real cute for my crazy wife!"

I love this sweet man! :) Pray for our job hunting! Thanks!

Our little town :)

A couple of weeks ago, I went walking around in Downtown Camas. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the temperature was about 65 degrees. I didn't have a sub job that day and I just wanted to be out in the nice weather.

Downtown Camas (that I lovingly call "DC"... ha,ha) is so cute and quaint. There are several delicious restaurants, coffee shops, businesses and a hotel down here. We have a historic, old movie theater. It's called "Liberty". There are still movies shown there.

DC is also pretty at night, with strings of white lights decorating the city year round. We have been downtown at night several times since Dec. 28th. There are special events monthly.

The fountain is a special memorial in honor of 9/11. I really like this fountain. I spent some time sitting by it that day, listening to the water trickling. It was very relaxing.

Anyways, I thought these pictures were cute and wanted to share them with you. Have a great day!

Pics of Mt. Hood

The 1st two pics are taken in our neighborhood. We can't see Mt. Hood from our house, but pretty much as soon as you come down our street and turn left, you can see it.

The next two pics are on the main highway from Portland to our town. We were only about 10 minutes from home at that point. Click on each picture for a closer look.



The pictures never do it justice. The mountain is so magnificent when you are driving toward it. I'm always disappointed when I look at my pictures (at least with my iPhone) because the pics aren't anything like actually looking at it.

Mt. Hood is still solid white with snow right now. Even up here, we are still at 40 degrees for our low each day. Hood keeps some of its snow even in the summer. It's beautiful!

I love this picture!

The pastor who performed our wedding ceremony is one of Brandon's dear friends. Ron and his wife Gail came down from Longview, TX for the ceremony. Anyways, on Friday night, April 1st, we had our "non-rehearsal dinner" as I like to call it. We didn't have a rehearsal, just a dinner. ;-) Ha,ha. Ron took this picture at the dinner and it's one of my all-time favorites!

My wedding colors were lavender with soft pink and purple accents. I found this $200 lavender suit for $27.00 at Ross. It still had the designer price tags on it. Can't beat Ross with a stick! :)

Brandon is still sick. Please pray for him. Thank you!

May 14-15= 11 months!

Guess what? Yesterday and today mark 11 months that Brandon called me over the fax that didn't go through. :) Yay for my fax skills deficiency! You know, he got blamed for a faulty fax machine, but it was actually something I did incorrectly. :) Oops... oh well! I got a husband out of it! ;-)

Brandon called and left me a voicemail on June 14th. I called him back & left him a voicemail. He called me BACK on June 15th and we talked for 30 minutes. :) And that's how our relationship began. We talked & got to know each other 5.5 months before he came down to Texas in November. 4 months later, we were married! :)

These pictures are from Seattle last weekend. The 1st one is from the trolley ride. And the 2 dim ones are from our dinner at the top of the Seattle Space Needle last Saturday night. :) Fun!!! I will post a link of the other Seattle pics soon.

My honey has been sick since Thursday. :( Poor thing... say a prayer for him.

Love from Washington from the honeymooners... :) We think we're still honeymooning.

Pics from our trip to Astoria :)

My honey took me to Astoria on April 30- May 1st. We had a great trip! I actually have more pictures from the honeymoon, Astoria and Seattle on our video camera. Don't be hatin'! You may be sick of pictures by now. I actually haven't even looked at any of those pictures yet. Brandon dumped all of them to my computer for me, but I haven't looked at them.

So here are the ones from my iPhone. I also included the pics from our date night in Portland before the Astoria trip. Click on the picture below. Enjoy!

Astoria

Beautiful day!

It's 73 degrees & sunny today in Camas! It's the warmest day so far in 2011. It feels great!

I worked today (subbing) as a 3rd grade teacher. The kids were great! It's very easy to sub here. There are almost no discipline problems. It's wonderful!

My school today was right next to the administration building (where Bran works). So, I'm waiting on him in the lounge so we can go to Portland. We are going to have dinner tonight at a special place on the Columbia River. :) Date night!

Honeymoon Part 2

I've been working on this project off and on now since we returned. It takes awhile for the pictures to upload. Then I go through and delete the bad ones. Anyway, maybe by our 1-year anniversary I'll have them all uploaded (HA!). And I still have to upload Seattle and Astoria. Sheesh... a girl's work is never done! ;-)

Here is the timeline for our honeymoon:

We got married Saturday, April 2, 2011. We left the wedding and drove straight to San Antonio for our 6 pm dinner reservation at the top of the Tower of Americas, compliments of Debbie Hall. :)

Saturday night- San Antonio (SA)
Sunday night- SA
Monday night- SA
Tuesday night- Pampa/Amarillo, TX
Wednesday night- Flagstaff, Arizona
Thursday night- Las Vegas, Nevada (Golden Nugget)
Friday night- Las Vegas (Trump Tower---AWESOME!)
Saturday night- Santa Maria, California
Sunday night- Point Arena, California (Wharfmaster's Inn)
Monday night- Gold Beach, Oregon (Ireland's Rustic Lodges/Gold Beach Inn)

What's crazy about Gold Beach is that I applied for and had a phone interview for minister of music with a church there in the summer of 2010. Who would ever think I would pass through there on my honeymoon? :)

Once we hit California, we went up the coast on Hwy 1 and Hwy 101. It was GORGEOUS! Most nights we had a room with a balcony facing the ocean! I love it!!! We stayed at some beautiful places for some very reasonable prices. God definitely gave us favor! I found most of these places on my iPhone in the car passing through towns.

We visited Hearst Castle, high upon a hill, in Cambria/San Simeon, CA. It was neat! We went on a guided tour. We bought our matching Hearst Castle sweatshirts in Cambria. :) That was a gorgeous day!

Hope you can open the link! CLICK on our PICTURE. Please scroll down to the new honeymoon pics if you already saw the first round. The new ones start halfway through Las Vegas.

Apr 21, 2011

I love my husband...

I can't believe the man God has given me. He is so wonderful. I know it's so cliche' to say it, but it really was worth the wait. Brandon is everything I ever wanted and things I never even knew I wanted. I wouldn't have known to ask God for the qualities Brandon exhibits every day. It blows me away sometimes when I think about it.

This morning, I laid in bed meditating on some of the prophetic words I've received in my life. In 1998, I received a word that said my husband would treat me like gold. Brandon definitely treats me like gold. I didn't know I could be loved like this.

Another word I received was based on James 3:2 and Genesis 6. Both of these scriptures deal with being blameless & having integrity. I watch my husband operate with integrity each and every day, sometimes in the face of adversity. I love his character. I love anticipating his responses to persecution at work... always with integrity and godliness.

I am so thankful God brought Brandon into my life and gave me a sweet, loving, godly husband. I am so satisfied. I am thankful for the blessings.

Brandon is taking me to Seattle this weekend! I've always wanted to visit Seattle. I'm really looking forward to it! We will be gone Friday thru Monday.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! :) I am thankful for my mom!!!

Our 1-month anniversary!

Brandon and I have had some debate over whether our anniversary was Saturday (28 days/4 weeks) or today, May 2nd. I think it was Saturday, but I don't mind celebrating both days. ;-)

We had a great weekend! Friday night, Brandon took me back to the place we went the night he proposed. It's a really neat place called McMenamin's/Kennedy School in Portland. It's a historic school that was turned into a hotel, gourmet restaurant and movie theater. We ate dinner in the courtyard (which was perfect!) and then we saw a movie. It was very fun!

Saturday, we went to our fav Mexican restaurant for lunch and then we headed out of town to Astoria, about 2 hours from here. The Columbia River flows between Oregon and Washington and eventually empties into the ocean. Astoria is where the river meets the ocean. It was so beautiful!

On Sunday, we ate the special breakfast and spent the day bashing around Astoria. We rode the trolley (something I love doing... we rode a trolley in Sedona, AZ on our honeymoon, too!). We went to the Astoria Column and got 360 degree views of the city. Then, we did something really neat. I read a Christian romance book last year. The author lives off the Long Beach peninsula, about 30 minutes from Astoria. The love story took place in Ocean Park & Oysterville, Washington. Brandon wanted me to see the little towns where the story took place. I loved that book & it was really neat to see the locations! :) I was a very happy girl!

We had a seafood dinner at a cool place in Ocean Park. Then, we stopped for dessert at our new favorite restaurant on our way back through Astoria. We got home last night around 10:30 pm. It was a great weekend!

I will try to attach another link to show pictures from the weekend. I will attach a few of my favs for now.

Pic #1: Brandon and me at McMenamin's in Portland Friday night

Pic #2: One of the lighthouses we saw this weekend, called North Head Light in Ilwaco, WA

Pic #3: Brandon and me at the restaurant called "Baked Alaska". We also ate Baked Alaska for the 1st time!

Pic #4: Brandon hated that bamboo stalk, so I took his picture with it. He looks so cute!

Pic #5: The view from our private balcony at the bed & breakfast

Have a great week!

Romantic Getaway!!!

Instead of snow shoeing at Mount Hood, my honey suggested we go to the coast for a seafood festival! So, yesterday, we went and ate lunch at our favorite restaurant in Portland and then we drove 2 hours to Astoria, Oregon. Brandon suggested we stay at a bed & breakfast, which I LOVE! Candice knows this! ;-) I found a place on my iPhone in the car on the way here called Grandview Bed & Breakfast. I can't wait to post pics tonight or tomorrow! :) This place is beautiful! We are on the 3rd floor with a private balcony facing the Columbia River, which flows right into the ocean. Love it!